The Trump administration is creating a new division to guarantee the right of healthcare professionals to refuse certain acts for religious reasons, such as abortion.
This is a new step in the cultural war being played out in the United States. The Trump administration last week announced its commitment to better protect doctors and other healthcare professionals who wish to refrain from performing certain acts for religious reasons, such as abortion or providing for gender reassignment.
“Too many health professionals have been harassed and discriminated against because of their religious beliefs and moral convictions, which has led many of them to question their future within our health system,” said Acting US Secretary of State for Health Eric Hargan said during a public statement (in English) held last Thursday in the company of several officials and members of the majority.
The administration has thus set up a new entity within the Civil Rights Department. (Office for Civil Rights) of the Department of Health, baptized “Division for Freedom of Conscience and Religion” (Conscience and Religious Freedom Division). According to the official press release (in English), this division will allow “to apply with more vigor and effectiveness the current laws aiming to protect the freedom of conscience and religion, which constitutes the first freedom guaranteed by the Bill of rights”.
Abortion in the sights
In the sights of this new entity: abortion, a major dividing line in public opinion and a central political marker of the Trump administration. According to a survey published in July 2017 According to Pew Research Center, two-thirds (65%) of Republican supporters are partially or totally opposed to abortion. Among evangelical Protestant whites, who constitute Donal Trump’s main electoral base, the rate rises to 70%.
The move is part of the Trump administration’s widespread offensive against abortion. The Hill website reports that the administration on Friday announced its willingness to revoke a 2016 provision that prevented states from removing Medicaid (health coverage for the poorest Americans) grants to family planning. In fact, access to abortion is already very difficult in the Bible Belt (conservative Southeast) and parts of the Midwest, where abortion clinics are closing one by one. A movement initiated before the election of Trump.
Difficulties in accessing care in anticipation
Concerns also relate to the management of gender reassignment for transgender people. Euthanasia and assisted suicide (legal in some states) as well as contraceptive sterilization (tubal ligation and vasectomy), widely used in the United States, are also concerned. So many practices rejected by the most religious Americans, who see it as an offense to human nature.
As remark the Los Angeles Times, several laws already exist to prevent the federal state from discriminating against doctors who refuse to perform abortions or sterilizations for moral or religious reasons. The same is true of the refusal to practice assisted suicide, protected by… Obamacare. For many commentators, the creation of Conscience and Religious Freedom Division raises fears of a domino effect, resulting in denial of care for the patients concerned.
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